Millions of beverages are sold each year in groups of six cans each; the six cans are held together by a plastic web that has six openings formed therein to receive the cans and which further includes finger and thumb holes to facilitate carrying of the cans as a unit. The consumer remove each can from the carrier by pulling it from its associated opening.
Although the plastic in the carriers is recyclable, many people persist in discarding them by roadways, public parks, and other areas where they may be encountered by birds and other wildlife. Even those carriers deposited in trash containers cause harm to birds that frequent landfills. There have been numerous recorded incidents of large birds, for example, having a six pack ring so tightly bound about their neck that they are unable to swallow their food and thus expire from starvation.
Only a few inventors have addressed the problem. One successful solution is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,016,750 to Gordon. The removal of containers from the Gordon carrier results in breakage of the rings, as is highly desirable. However, the breakage is accomplished by interconnecting a plastic strip between the push tab used to open the can and its associated ring; the ring is weakened where the plastic strip joins it, so that the plastic strip tears through the ring when the can is removed from the carrier. This interconnection of tab and ring requires that the plastic strip wrap around the push tab. Other embodiments of the same invention require modification of the can as well.
Another inventor, as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,202,448, developed a carrier having rings that separate from one another so that they may be used as coasters. However, each individual ring remains intact after it has been separated from the others.
Thus, there remains a need for a carrier having frangible rings that break open when a can is removed therefrom and which does not require modification of the can or the addition of auxiliary parts to the can and carrier construction in common use. Ideally, the rings should break in the absence of customer intention to break them and even in the presence of customer intention not to break them. The prior art, when considered as a whole in accordance with the requirements of law, neither teaches nor suggests how such a desirable carrier could be provided.